Etihad Airways and Air New Zealand agree maintenance deal

Codeshare partners Etihad Airways and Air New Zealand have signed a wide-ranging agreement to provide reciprocal line maintenance services in Melbourne, Australia, and Los Angeles in the USA.

Etihad Airways will soon perform
all scheduled and non-scheduled line maintenance on Air New Zealand aircraft in
Melbourne at its Tullamarine engineering facility. In return, Air New Zealand is already
performing full line maintenance for Etihad Airways in Los Angeles.

The maintenance services to be
performed in Melbourne and Los Angeles may include transit, daily and weekly
checks, scheduled engineering services and fault repairs for the aircraft
systems and passenger cabins.

Etihad Airways started a daily
non-stop service between Abu Dhabi and Los Angeles on 1 June 2014, using a
three-class Airbus A340-500 aircraft.
From mid-July a Boeing 777-200LR will operate the route. Air New Zealand has operations from Los
Angeles to Auckland, London-Heathrow and Rarotonga.

Air New Zealand operates an
average of five flights a day from Melbourne to Auckland, Christchurch and
Wellington, as well as a seasonal service to Queenstown.

Jeff Wilkinson, Etihad Airways
Senior Vice President Technical, said:
“Our successful codeshare partnership with Air New Zealand goes back
three years and we are delighted to build on this foundation by working together
in the technical area.

“Etihad Airways’ Melbourne line
maintenance facilities, services and personnel are world-class, and we look
forward to servicing Air New Zealand’s aircraft while they perform similar line
maintenance for us at their modern facility in Los Angeles.

“We also expect this announcement
to lead to further employment opportunities at our Melbourne line maintenance
facility in the future.”

Air New Zealand Chief Operations
Officer Bruce Parton, said: “We look forward to working with Etihad Airways
both as a customer and service provider. Our Los Angeles maintenance team
currently provides services to several airlines and we are excited to add
Etihad Airways to the list.”

In addition to Melbourne and Sydney, Etihad
Airways’ existing line maintenance facilities are in Chicago, Dublin, Mumbai,
Lahore, London-Heathrow, Manchester and Singapore.